Tivo and Dominos

While going through some of the postings that Professor Regales posted on her blog I came across the Tivo and Dominos Pizza team up. I remember when we spent pretty much a whole class talking about this and I think that it is another thing that America is doing to make us more lazy and fat. People already complain about how inactive our society is today, so why would we let Tivo make it so we can order food from our television set? I mean I guess that it is kind of the same thing as ordering the food over the phone, but at least we might not have been sitting around being lazy and watching tv. Maybe we were actively doing things around the house or just got back from running and wanted to order food for the night. But, now we are allowing people to order food from their television which means that they are sitting around being a couch potato. I do not get it and I think that it is absurd. Some people would disagree with me and that is fine, but next thing that we are going to have is people being called over to deliver the food right to our couch and possibly even feed it to you.

Advertisements

Something that I was just newly informed about is that when I am doing my daily stalking on Facebook the ads that are on the side of the pages are coming from what the ad people read off of my Facebook page. I had always seen the ads on the side of the pages and never really thought anything of it except that they were just annoying ads and I obviously never click on them. But, it was not until just the other day that my friends and I were talking and one of them informed me that the ads that we see on our Facebook pages were targeted specifically to us based on our information. I think that is crazy how the Internet is so advanced that it can pick up something that little and have an underlying message. And now that I think about it all of the ads that I see when I am logged into Facebook are bases around things that I have written in my information portion of my webpage.

Sick People

When Professor Regales posted a blog about the boy who killed himself while others watched it made me sick to my stomach. I could not get over the fact that people would seriously sit at their computer and actually want to watch someone (whether it was real or not) talk about or in fact kill themselves. There are definitely some sick people out in the world, but honestly why would someone talking about killing themselves intrigue you and make you want to watch? It makes me sad to read about things like this because if I had seen this online I most definitely would have reported it to someone right away. When I heard about this it also reminded me of the movie that came out last year called Untraceable. It was about a serial killer who killed people over the internet while others watched. Maybe that movie is what sparked this kid to give it a try and whelp it worked. I really hope that this never happens again and that if people do see something like that they will report it.

Online Shopping

With the Holidays right around the corner I have to really start thinking about what I want to get my friends and family. I absolutely love going to the mall and shopping, especially around Christmas time. I think that being in the mall and seeing all the decorations and listening to the Christmas music is so much fun, but for some reason this year, I guess maybe because I am stressing out about finals and doing well in school, I do not want to step foot into a mall. Therefore, I love the fact that I can go online and do my holiday shopping. I think that being able to sit at your computer, browse through gifts, ask others what they think about an item whether it is good or not, and sometimes even save money is crazy. The only problem that I have with buying things over the internet is that there is shipping and handling, so I would end up spending a little more money that I would if I bought the gift at the store, but if it saves me from having to leave my house and deal with all of the crazy crowds then that extra 5.50 isn’t that big of a deal for me.

Text Messaging

Text messaging, why do we sit on our cell phones for hours on end text messaging rather than just picking up the phone and call the person? I used to hate text messages, actually I used to not be allowed to text message period because I did not have unlimited messages and therefore my mom would not let me. Obviously, I did not listen very well and I still did text every now and then so my mom finally put us on unlimited. If I could decide between picking up the phone and calling my friend rather than spending the time to type what I wanted to say I would definitely pick up the phone. But, most of my friends would rather get the message saying what are you doing than have a phone conversation. I do not get it unless I am in class or doing something where I can not talk, but other than that I would rather talk to the person on the phone. The only time that I really do like text messaging is when I might feel uncomfortable calling someone so then I can avoid talking to them by voice. Other than that I am pro phone calling.

LimeWire

How do you download your music? Do you copy it from your CDs, download it legally, or do you do it illegally? I personally download my music illegally. I get all of my music from the LimeWire data base of music. I know that this is completely illegal and that I could probably get into a lot of trouble for it, but it is free and I can download for the most part any piece of music or movie that I would want. I know this is wrong because musicians make their music for people to buy their CDs, but if I can get it for free then why not? And sometimes I do still buy the actual CD from a store ,but right now being a poor college student I am not going to spend hundreds of dollars for the music that I listen to when I don’t have to spend a dime. I have over a thousand songs downloaded on my computer right now and with LimeWire I can stay updated with all the new songs. When I get out of college I will probably delete it because it does mess with your computer and at this point I would not mind spending 99 cents for a song every now and then. But, for now I am going to be “bad” and get it for free.

The Blackberry

The blackberry has always been seen as the “business man” phone and only the people who needed it for work or to receive important emails at anytime during the day had them. Now-a-days it is one of the most, if not the most trendy phone out there. Everyone has one, wants one, or thinks that they need one and I do not under stand it. I think that it is very cool to be able to get or check your email at anytime during the day, but why can’t you just wait until you get home to check it on your computer. I do understand the people who really do need it because of their work, but what did those people do back a few years ago, before internet or email was accessible at anytime or anywhere during the day? I do not have a blackberry right now and I do not think that I want one anytime soon. I don’t know why I would need one and I sometimes like being able to get on my computer and go into my mail and have new things from friends, family, teachers, and so on. Call me a dork, but I like checking my email the normal way.

Touchscreen

I was watching television today and I came across the commercial with the new touch screen computer. I think that this whole new touch screen era is pretty insane. At first I thought that it was kind of cool, but once I bought into it and actually got a touch screen phone I completely changed my mind. I have the voyager and the whole outside of the phone is touch screen. It is very hard to use sometimes because it is so sensitive and very easily broken. Before this phone I had a normal flip once and it was indestructible. I could throw it across the room, pour water all over it and it would still work. Now with my new phone I drop it once and I and I have to take it to the Verizon store to get a new one. I think that the new touch screen phones, cameras, and now computers are absolutely ridiculous. I would not recommend them to anyone and it scares me to think about how fast our technology is growing and it is only going to get more extreme.

You-Tube Postings

Now-a-days there are so many websites that allow children under the age of 18 to log on and either surf through it or sometimes even post things. YouTube is one of the many websites that allows this, it is a website where anyone can post pretty much anything. There are some restrictions and there are ways of making your posting private, but for the most part anyone can post anything. I do not understand why it would be allowed for children or girls for that matter to post videos of themselves dancing in provocative ways or things that are unnecessary to be shown over the internet. First of all it is very inappropriate and second of all you have no idea who looks at these videos. Most importantly though, you have no idea what those people are doing behind their computer screens. I understand that it might be hard for a website to regulate something like this so therefore I think that parents need to get control of their children and restrict what they can and can not do on the internet.

The Change of Facebook

Facebook in the past four years has escalated from just a way to stay in touch with old and new friends to now almost what I think is the “new” MySpace. I remember when it was first invented; I was a senior in high school and all of my friends made an account for themselves. I refused to make one because I thought that it was like having a MySpace and I personally think that they are weird. (Also at this time Facebook was only for people in college.) I finally gave in and the only reason that I did was because my friends made an account for me. I found out that I really enjoyed having a page, I got to stay in touch with my old friends, people I had not talked to in years, and the friends that I was making in college. Facebook has changed over the past few years because instead of just staying in touch with people now we can post pictures, compare our friends with other friends, post videos, take quizzes, play games, and many other things that make it more like a MySpace page. I just think that it is so crazy how a website can change in so many ways due to the rapid growing pace of technology in just a few years. I am very curious to see where Facebook will be in the next three years.

Suggestion.

An assignment I think that would be cool and interesting for this course is to have us do something with the Facebook website. I think it would be fun for us to have maybe an ongoing survey or some type of crowd based assignment specifically relating to The Facebook. Even though the course is called Facebook Culture: New Media, Surveillance and Democracy and we really did not base a lot of the class around Facebook, I therefore think that this assignment would be totally relevant for this course. I really did not find many things that I would change or even suggest for this class, but the only thing that I might do with the readings is I would maybe try to find a book that contradicts or argues with the text iSpy. I think that it would be interesting to see an opposing side to iSpy to get the readers really thinking.

My Favorite Book in MCS 370

If I had to pick a book out of all of the books that we read this semester and decide which one I liked the most and thought was most relevant for this class I would have to say that it would be iSpy. I really enjoyed reading it and I thought that it was very interesting. I never really knew how much surveillance is in everyone’s ever day lives and that most people would not even know as to when they were being watched. On top of interesting I also found it to be kind of scary. A lot of the time surveillance is used for the good, but there are the times when surveillance could possibly do harm to another person. This book was good for this class because it taught us things about today’s society to prove how much technology has drastically changed throughout the years. I would definitely recommend this book for future MCS classes. This class is about the facebook culture and how our society and world is growing rapidly in terms of technology and I think that this book teaches us this concept. A book that I would not recommend again would be Cult of the Amateur. I personally did not like this book and I think that this class could do with out it.

What do you find when you Google yourself?

After Googling myself the only thing that I could really find were my blogs for my classes, my bio on the Retriever website about lacrosse, an article about my team on the retrieverweekly.com, and other lacrosse articles that I have been in. There were plenty of other articles that either had Swift in it that came up or the name Abbey Swift, but they had nothing to do with me. I would say that 90% of the things that came up after Googling myself had nothing to do with me. The only digital impression of me that is on the Internet today is an athletic one and I guess that I do my assignments for class, but the only problem I have with my blogs being out there is that I have pictures of myself on them. Therefore, people would know what I look like. Also I don’t like that there is so much that someone could find about me because if they were to Google me they would know where I went to school, how many brothers and sisters I have, what my parents names are, and most importantly what I look like. I personally do not like that; I think it is kind of scary. I would rather if someone where to Google me not be able to find anything because if someone wanted to stalk me they could.

Surveillance . . . Do you use it?

I am addicted to the website on the internet called Facebook. I would say that I visit the site ATLEAST 3 times a day, if not more. With that being said, I use surveillance everyday in my life. Facebook has wall posts that I can see on other peoples pages, it has newly uploaded photos that I can see through my other friends, and it has pretty much anything I would want in order to be able to “watch” or spy on someone else’s life. I definitely use newly updated photos of crushes or boyfriends from my friends or even through people who are not my friends, but have tagged a person that I want to be “stalking” (as I like to call it) to spy on them and see what girl they might be hanging around or to even see what they did the weekend before. (I know that sounds super creepy, but let’s be honest here don’t lie to yourself, you know you do it too.) I like to use Facebook to keep myself updated with friends that I have not seen or talked to in months or even years. After charting myself with surviallence for two days, I would say that I use it everyday, but if I didn’t have Facebook or the Internet, I would have nothing else to be able to spy on anyone other than my own eyes.

TechnoSavy

I think that the authors of the book Millennial Makeover are for the most part head on when they make generalizations about our generation. The main argument that they are trying to prove is that this generation is going to be the new "political powerhouse" and going to help the Democrats. Since we are so technologically sound it is going to push people to vote more for the Democrats rather than Republicans and I agree. Even though I might not be a Democrat, I still agree with what they are trying to say.
If I had to pick a name for this generation I would call it TechnoSavy. I think that this name is perfect for my generation today because everything that we do revolves around either the internet or just technology in general. That is how we do our school work, get in touch with everyone, and now-a-days buy certain things. Another thing that goes hand in hand with technology that this generation can not live with out is wireless. Everything in which we use today has some sort of wireless device that goes along with it. For example, the lap top computers, the cell phone, and wireless internet. The only cultural touch notes I feel that are most useful in understanding this generation are reality television, video game systems, and cellphones. Everyone has them or watches it and if you don't then you are out of the "loop".

You-Tube Debate Videos vs. The Actual Debate

After watching a few debates online I think that they look more organic rather than ads because out of the ones that I watched none of them were trying to promote anything. All of the debates were for the most part taken right off of television. They all seemed to be the live debate, as if they were taken right off of ABC, CBS, NBC, and so on. I think that most of them seemed more polished rather than amateur because, like I said they looked like they were taken right off of the channel in which they were viewed. It did not seem like anyone messed with them or tried to make them Pro McCain or Pro Obama. On the other hand after I watched some user-generated political videos I felt that some of them were more convincing than the debates on You-Tube because the people who made these videos took time into making them. They took different points for who they felt more passionately about and made them look "good" compared to the other candidate. Also they took clips from specific debates and either pushed for one candidate or the other and it really made them look good. The video that I found most authenic, convincing, and real is, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IH0xzsogzAk. This video showed things that McCain has said which were either completely absurd or not true. Even though I don't know which candidate I will be voting for, it really made me think about both.
Compared to older campaign ads on You-Tube I think that these are more convincing because they are more up to date and I think that they seem to have more accurate information. The videos from older times are more of the debating rather than a video that someone took the time to make and try to sway people into liking one candidate over the other.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioy90nF2anI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7C-2-jtKFM
http://www.youtube.com/user/johnmccaindotcom?ob=4

Blog 1

When faced with a major dilemma or major decision in my life I usually turn to my friends, my sisters, and my mom. My friends are a big part of my life and I talk with them about everything. I am also very close with my mom and my two older sisters, I tell my mom for the most part everything and now that I am older I am a lot closer with my sisters. They are all my support system and I really do not know what I would do with out them. If I did not have any of them to go to for anything and everything I am pretty sure that I would not have been able to get through bad things that have occurred in my life.

After visiting the side taker website and reading the things that people have actually written about asking for advice I cannot believe that people write about such personal things for the public to read. I would never post things like that online for everyone to read and I would definitely not take advice from total strangers. I’m not going to lie I think that it is kind of weird that people would take advice from the public and from people that they have never even met before. Even though Surowiecki states that a group of average people will often come up with a solution to a problem that is equal to or greater than the solution an expert would have provided I still think that putting that much personal information online is strange. But, if I had to choose I would trust the crowd over an advice columnist because with the crowd you get a lot of different views on what other people think rather than just one person.